Monday, October 31, 2016

Ever browse in a bookstore, then look online at Amazon.com
on your personal device to see if you can get the books for a cheaper price?
You really shouldn’t do that, since it could drive your local bookstore out of
business.

But now you can have the same experience guilt-free at an
Amazon.com bookstore I visited on foot. No, this was not some virtual
experience. This physical store in Seattle’s University Village Shopping Center
is one of only three they’ve built.

Inside, they have typical bookshelves. I looked over the
science fiction and fantasy selections and saw they were noticeably different
from what I see in the three Barnes & Noble bookstores I frequent. That’s
because they base their selections on rankings on the Amazon.com website—obviously.

Each book has two prices: For instance, the list price for
this paperback Alexander Hamilton bio was $20.00. But if you were an Amazon
Prime member, you would pay the online price. Currently, that is $13.27.

I don’t think this is simply a way of driving people to
become Prime members—it would be a hideously expensive way to do so. No, many
people want to feel a book, weigh it in their hands, and leaf through it before
buying.

But at some point in the sick, twisted mind of Jeff Bezos,
did he plot on driving other brick and mortar stores out of business, to be
replaced by his own? When he saw Borders go through its death spiral, did he
know his secret plan was working?

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Not long ago, I saw parents escorting and staying with their
elementary school children at bus stops. This is called helicopter parenting, a
riff on how they’re said to hover over them.

This is not good for children. In ninth grade, I had to walk
two miles to school. Part of it was up a steep hill. Here it is nowadays, with
improvements.

It sure didn’t look this way back then. The steps were dirt,
which turned to mud the first day I had to hike up it. Many of the girls were
quite in distress over it. Later, they added crude steps in the form of
railroad ties held in place by pipes that were hammered down. The pipes had no
safety caps; just ends of pipes sticking up from the dirt or mud. We had to be
careful not to jam our legs on them as we climbed.

Often I had to carry my alto saxophone case, which weighed
thirteen pounds, in addition to my books.

Did I appreciate this at the time? No. Was it good for me?
Looking back on it, yes. Not just in the sense of physical fitness, but in the
sense of building character, which I now believe has to include physical
challenges at a young age with no safety net. I never saw any parents escort
their children up those steps. Now, parents drive their children to school when
they could take the bus. I was shocked to find out some years ago that there
were traffic jams around some schools because of how many parents dropped off
or picked up their children from school.

But now look at that path. They have installed nice steps,
instead of dirt. And there’s a railing. We didn’t need a railing as we toiled
up and down with our books and musical instruments.